The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) says increasing hostility toward aid agencies in war-ravaged Somalia is putting more than 850 000 children at risk because the agency cannot get essential supplies to them.
Rozanne Chorlton says children will ”certainly” die if it does not soon receive ”concrete assurances from local authorities” to allow deliveries.
The agency said in Thursday’s statement it has been forced to postpone dispatching hundreds of tons of life-saving nutritional supplies to stem children’s acute malnutrition.
In recent months, an extremist Islamic militia that is alleged to have links with al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab, has ordered UN agencies out of territory they control in southern Somalia.
Somalia has not had an effective government for 18 years. — Sapa-AP